Avatar: The Broken Contract
by HeirOfVoid
Summary: Long ago, the four nations lived together in balance. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation opened the first trading post. Title image by mimetic heresy.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer****: I do not own Avatar:The Last Airbender, and I never will. I'm not writing this again.**

The history of the Great Revolution and the Great Reformation

by Katara of the Southern Water Tribe.

_Long ago, the four nations lived together in balance. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation opened its first trading post. It was an unassuming little shop, located in the middle ring of Ba Sing Se, and only sold the most basic items. Mostly, it imported cheap Fire Nation steel, fashioned into everyday objects like fishing hooks, fire starters, or chain links. However, what little it sold was both better made and much cheaper than the local competition, despite having to raise their prices to cover shipping costs. As word of the store and its quality merchandise spread, it started raking in the money, and quickly grew in size and scope, bringing Fire Nation art, furniture, and many other things to the Walled City's inhabitants. In fact, it was so successful that its owners decided to expand even more, starting similar trading posts in the other great cities, including Omashu and the Northern and Southern water tribes. Soon the franchise could be found in even the smaller villages, plying the best wares available._

_And that was just the beginning. In an attempt to increase profits, the great shipping merchants hired__waterbenders to propel their ships, making them far faster and allowing for the complete removal of the engine and sails, which meant more cargo space. This sparked other ideas, ideas about how bending could be used for more than combat. Soon, a new variety of earthbending school opened, one that taught architecture and engineering instead of martial arts._

_The first few graduates made the biggest impact, causing high quality roads, large scale irrigation, and sturdy stone houses to pop up all over the world almost overnight. In a few short hours, a trained earthbender could make a larger, nicer stone house than a month's worth of building with wood. Within the year, everyone who wasn't really scraping the bottom or lived on an ice floe had commissioned one of these houses._

_The airbenders weren't left out of the party, either. In exchange for food and a place to sleep, they could carry messages, cargo, and even passengers as fast as the winds traveled, covering in days what used to take weeks. This led to a massive increase in communication once the Air Nomad Post Office was founded._

_And you can't forget the waterhealers. After enough people traveled to the poles in search of cures for ailments that mere herbs couldn't handle, a few ambitious healers set up shop in the lands of Earth and Fire. With the healing arts now available to everyone, people started living longer, decades longer._

_This all resulted in a massive increase in the standard of living, as goods and people traveled the world, and almost everyone had more food, a stronger home, and better health. And for 13 years, everything was perfect._

_Then politics happened. One of the lesser sons of the Fire Lord had seen all the wealth brought in by the trading posts, and wanted it for himself. He moved slowly, worming those loyal to him into position all over the world, disguised as inconspicuous sailors, managers, and factory workers. They struck on the day the Great Sun Comet returned. In a simultaneous sneak attack that touched both the poles, Ba Sing Se, The Fire Nation Capital, and everything in between, they conquered the entire world in the space of 12 hours. The Air Nomads were hit the hardest, as their love of freedom meant that they would never submit to Fire Nation rule, and were driven into hiding or extinction (no one knows for certain)._

_Only the Avatar, Master of all four__elements, could have stood a chance against such a well-planned attack, but he had vanished over 13 years previously,__just before the first outpost opened under mysterious circumstances, and his reincarnation had not yet been found.__ Without the Avatar to stop him, Prince Basan became the new Fire Lord Basan, and nothing has been the same since. 100 years have passed since then, and the Avatar still hasn't returned. He's__got to be out there somewhere, though, because if the Fire Nation had caught him, they would gloat about it until the great Koi fish swallowed the sun. So we wait, hoping that he'll return and end our subjugation before the Fire Nation becomes too corrupt. (Father, once you grade this, make sure you burn it. The last thing we want is for a regulator to find it.)_

88888888

_Journal entry #1. March 14th, year 113 after The Great Revolution._

_I might as well start with the basics. Hello, journal. My name is Katara, and I'm a waterbender at the South pole. I live in an igloo I made with my big brother Sokka, and our father, whenever he's home. Luckily for me, our village that far enough away any semblance of civilization__that the Fire Nation__doesn't really pay any attention to us, so we were able to get out of the mandatory schooling *cough*brainwashing*cough*. My brother and I were taught at home, an ever increasing rarity these days. We're mostly left to our __own __devices, between Mother working as a healer on Ember Island and Father traveling deep into the tundra for week long hunting trips (penguin jerky and fur coats are trending this year). I would usually practice my water bending while my brother trained in combat or conducted__his own mock fishing/hunting trips, but somehow he managed to rope me into coming along with him yesterday, a trip that changed both our lives._

_Thanks to a family squabble started by Sokka (my brother) and ended by me (of course), I found him. After... after all this time, I (personally!) found the Avatar. Unfortunately, neither of us were expecting him to be an extremely perky Airbender named Aang who wasn't even fully grown yet. He also wasn't even close to completing his training. At least he had already mastered airbending, otherwise finding a teacher for him would have been practically impossible. _

_Unfortunately, he is also the least responsible person I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. Getting him to focus long enough to learn anything will probably stretch my considerable patience to its limits (I swear, the kid is more flighty than a flutterwasp)._

_He was there that night 100 years ago, he watched the Great Reformation (heh, more like the Great Undoing, but saying that is a good way to see the inside of a cell) firsthand, and now that he's free and knows his powers, he's eager and willing to take down the usurpers that have caused so much suffering for him and his people._

_Anyway, here's our goal: travel all over the world, sneaking past the entire Fire Nation in the process, help Aang to master the other elements, find the real heirs to the Fire Nation throne, figure out what made all this happen in the first place, then raise an army and take our freedom back from those who wish to exploit us, hopefully reviving the Air nomads in the process. Yep, we're screwed._

_**Hey, I helped free him too! I made you mad enough to reflex bend that iceberg apart didn't I? Also, language Sis!**_

_That doesn't count Sokka. And screwed is not a swear word._

_**Says you.**_

_Sigh._

**AN: This story was partially inspired by"****Embers" by Vathara, ****and "W****hat SHOULD have happened in ATLA" by daveshan. go give those a read.**

**Also, don't forget to review!**


	2. Chapter 2: No Hero Discount

Chapter 2: No Hero Discount

Sokka

Of all things I ever thought I would end up doing, sneaking around my own home town was definitely not on the list. Aang didn't blend in in the slightest, thanks to his Air Master tattoos and Air Nomad clothing, so we had to get him back to our house without anyone else noticing. Unfortunately, I could only think of one way to go about it.

"Eww, these fish are all slimy," said Aang from the bottom of our sled.

"_Shh_," I shushed him. "Not here."

"So," said Katara, "why are we doing this again?"

"Simple, sis," I stated, "Aang is liable to wander off and do something stupid if we leave him to his own devices, and that's a good way for him to get a spear through the chest. We need to keep an eye on him for his own safety."

"Hey!"

"_I said quiet, we're here."_

We'd pulled up in front of our house, a nice large igloo with two stories and a dugout cellar. My mom had helped raise it with the rest of the village benders before she went north, and I always got a little pang of longing whenever I saw it. I know it affected my Dad and Katara, too (In fact that might be why Dad spends so much time away from home). I pulled our sled into the ante-room, a barrier between the winter cold and the inner rooms.

"Ok, Aang, you can come out now."

"Finally!" He sprang out of the sled with such ferocity that he sprayed in every direction, slapping both me and Katara in the face. "Oops, sorry." He said sheepishly. I suddenly had a bad feeling he would be saying that a lot.

"Sokka, Katara? You're home early." _Oh-shit-Dad's-back!_ I thought just as my father, Hakoda, the chief of the village, opened the inner door. "And who's..." he trailed off, taking in Aang's clothes, tattoos, slight stature and very nervous expression. "Ok, what did you guys do this time, and why does it involve an airbender?"

"Father," plied Katara, "That's not just any airbender, that's the Avatar."

"Really," Dad drawled. "Can he prove it?"

"Well," I started, "We found him in an iceberg during my fishing trip today, and he's apparently been in there since The Great Reformation, along with his bison. Also, when he woke up, it sent a pillar of light into the sky. How did you miss that anyway?"

"I must have been inside," my Dad turned around and went inside, and we trailed after him. He walked across the room and sat in his favorite chair with a thud, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Tui and La, that really is him, isn't it."

"Yes, it is, and he needs our help, Father," said Katara. "He needs to master the other elements if he's going to take down the Yogan Emporer. He can't exactly go around and do it by himself anymore, the whole Yogan army has been looking for him for decades. He has no idea what the world is like, and will need a guide."

"And why, exactly should I let you and your brother go off on a suicide mission to help this guy?"

"Because he's the Avatar!"

"That's not good enough!" Dad proclaimed. It was loud, but not a shout. "I'm not going to let my children put themselves in pointless danger! If he wants our help, he's going to have to prove his worth!"

"And how exactly is he supposed to do that?" I stated, "He already has his tattoos, and it's not like he could just go ice-floe dodging, people would see him."

Then Dad got THAT gleam in his eye, and he smirked. "That's a great idea Sokka. If he can complete our rite of passage, he'll be considered an adult, and be worthy of our assistance."

I performed a facepalm x1 combo."You're serious, aren't you? Goodbye, Aang, I barely knew ye."

"What's ice floe dodging? It sounds fun," chirped Aang.

"It's simple," Dad deadpanned, "You take a fishing skiff, and navigate it through Yuki-Onna bay. If you succeed, the villages will consider you an adult. Most succeed but..." Dad drew a finger across his throat. "Those who fail rarely survive."

Aang eyes bugged out, and he gulped. Then he glanced at Katara, and something in him went hard, that's the only way I can describe it. "I'll do it."

Dad blinked. "Really? Ok, then. Before we start, though, you're going to need new clothes."

88888888

"Katara," said Aang, "I'm having second thoughts here."

"Relax, Aang, you'll be fine," Katara cooed, "Just remember what Sokka taught you. Besides, you look adorable."

Aang blushed. He was decked out in full water tribe furs, with a hood obscuring his bald head and covering his arrow tattoos. The airbender was fidgeting under the gaze of the crowd, who had turned out at Dad's call for what they hoped would be a pretty entertaining spectacle. It wasn't every day that an outsider tried to go ice-floe dodging, after all. Or anything interesting happened at all, really.

Yuki-Onna bay was a glacial bay, the place where Aisu glacier met the open ocean, and deposited its ice floes into the frigid Antarctic waters. My tribe had conducted its becoming-of-age trails here for so long that no remembered why we did it in the first place. If you want our respect, the best way to get it is to run the course. The task is pretty straightforward on paper: the contestant takes a fishing boat, sails to Aisu glacier, cuts a piece of ice off of it, and returns to the mouth of the bay. If they make it back in one piece, they've succeeded. The tricky part is that thanks to the constant flow of new ice coming off the glacier, the bay is always changing. The route that the previous inductee took will probably never be usable again. Also, if you take the wrong piece of ice, you could bring the entire Cliffside down on your head. You have to be able to read the ice, know what it's going to do before it does it if you want to survive, in addition to being a decent sailor. All Water Tribe adults in my village have completed this task, and only one person I know of didn't succeeded when they tried it: we found his body squished in a crack in an iceberg two weeks later. Still, Aang's odds were pretty good. Sort of. Aw, who am I kidding. Without any training, the poor kid had no chance.

Once Katara was finished fussing over him, Aang steeled himself and stepped into the boat. A quick push and he was off into the bay. I lost sight of him between the ice chunks within the first minute. Nothing to do now but wait. Katara wasn't satisfied with that, though, and made a pillar ice to stand on for a better view. The other benders in the village quickly followed her example. I wonder what he's doing in there, anyway.

88888888

Aang

"Gah! Ice!"

I pulled hard on the water with my paddle to avoid yet _another_ hunk of frozen doom. I've lost count of how many ice floes I've ducked past, and I'm not even halfway across! Why did I agree to this? Oh, right. Katara looked so sad back in the igloo when she thought she couldn't help me, I just had to DO something. And I really needed their help, too. If 100 years had really passed, the world could look completely different. It had already changed dramatically in the few years I'd seen, there was no telling what it would be like now. Not to mention the "other reason"...

_**Smoke.**_

_**Burning.**_

_**Screaming.**_

_I bolted awake in a total panic. My room was on fire! A quick blast of wind cleared the path to the window, and I jumped out, grabbing my staff along the way. With only a sliver of the moon in the sky, visibility should have been poor, but the glow of dozens of blazing buildings and the dark red of The Great Sun Comet in the sky illuminated the spectacle below all too clearly. The Fire Nation had betrayed us: soldiers in dark armor were roasting anyone and everyone unfortunate enough to block their way. A few people were trying to get to the bison stables, but those must have been hit first, as I could only see a tiny fraction of our sky bison dwindling into the distance. A group of them spotted me, and sent a wall of fire in my direction. A quick swipe of my staff cut a hole for me to escape through, and I looped around the building to the main entrance. Master Gyatso had to be able to help, right?_

_I found him in the entry hall, back to back with five other master benders facing a swarm of spiky firebenders. They seemed to be holding their own, but the attacks they were using... I'd never seen any of them before. Gusts of wind drove spikes through armor, howling tornadoes sent whole battalions flying, and a vortex sucking all the air out and suffocating the soldiers within. Airbenders didn't fight like this._

_I sent a trio of soldiers sprawling with a over head strike from my staff as I landed next to my Master, ready to help him defend our home._

"_Aang what are you doing here!? It's not safe!" A slashing kick diverted a blast of fire._

"_Don't worry, master, I'm here to help!" I swung my staff in an arc, lifting the firebenders off their feet._

"_No, Aang, you have to go. Save yourself!" he punched another spike in our attackers._

"_What?! Why!?"_

"_Because you're the Avatar!" I staggered. I had never expected those words, let alone to have them come from him, my master, almost my father._

"_We'll hold them off while you escape, you have to master the elements if you want to set this right!"_

"_But-"_

"_Promise me, Aang."_

"_... I promise."_

"_Good, now go, your bison is waiting on the meditation balcony."_

_He would have hugged me then, if the act wouldn't have gotten us both killed. Instead, he shoved me behind him, towards the arch they were guarding. I ran._

Yipe! I leaned left so far I almost fell out of the boat, but managed to not lose my head to a nasty looking outcropping. That flashback was particularly intense.

_Focus, Aang_. I chided myself, something Gyatso was always telling me. _There's more riding on you than there ever was in the past. Don't. Mess. Up._

I went back to rowing. Now that I'd been at it for a while, I was starting to get into a rhythm. Stroke, stroke, steer, duck, stroke, weave, etc. In what seemed like a lot less time than it probably was, I'd made it to the base of the glacier. Whoa. As this massive edifice of ice loomed over me like an unbalanced mountain, I realized it was, well, a lot bigger than it looked. Now, where to break off a piece...

I swept my eyes over the nearby cliff, looking for a piece that would break off easily without destabilizing the ice above it. This was supposedly the hardest part, and the real test of a Water Tribe warrior, for obvious reasons. Sokka and Katara had given me an hour long crash course in this stuff, and I could tell they'd barely even started.

Soon enough, I spotted a likely outcropping, about three feet above the water, and sticking out enough I was pretty sure it wasn't supporting anything. Taking out the hammer and chisel I'd been given at the start, I started chipping away at the tip that stuck out the most. A dozen or so blows later, I was holding my very own piece of Glacier.

**CRACK.**

_Oh, Monkeyfeathers._

**AN: yes, I'm a stinker, but this is also the fastest I've updated anything I've written, ever. The next chapter should be up pretty quickly.**

**Don't forget to review.**


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